Secondly, for being a high-profile Democrat. He contemplated challenging Arnold Schwarzenegger in the election of Governor of California and recently said Donald Trump was “worse than Harvey Weinstein.”

Reiner combined both arenas for his new political biopic “LBJ,” starring Woody Harrelson as the 36th U.S. President and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Lady Bird Johnson, which opens Friday.

Reiner also co-founded film company Castle Rock Entertainment which produced “Michael Clayton” and “Before Sunrise” in addition to his own movies.

MarketWatch spoke to him about politics, hits and misses and why Woody Harrelson is a suitable LBJ.

Why make this movie given LBJ is recently such well-covered cultural terrain, most recently Bryan Cranston playing him on screen and stage in ‘All the Way?’

Hopefully people will get a greater understanding of who he actually was because his presidency, is like a tale of two presidencies. He’s got the Vietnam War; certainly as a kid growing up who was at the draft age during the Vietnam War, I didn’t like him. I thought he was a bad guy. But if you look at what he was able to accomplish on a legislative level, it’s extraordinary. Here’s a guy who was so successful doing domestic legislation, maybe second only to FDR, and yet has this horrible legacy of Vietnam. Who is this person? Most people have this image of Johnson being this larger than life twisting kind of guy who would browbeat people into doing his bidding but he also had this insecure side. He felt unloved at times and he had this recurring nightmare of being paralyzed. I wanted to focus on that more than what we know of him as a public figure.

Was he the last great president in your eyes?

There have been good presidents since then. I think Bill Clinton was good, Obama, some people liked Reagan. But nobody has come anywhere what LBJ was able to accomplish on a domestic level. It’s extraordinary the legislation he passed — the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start...it’s an enormous record. I don’t think anybody has come close to him since.

You mentioned you didn’t like LBJ growing up. You certainly don’t like Trump. What makes you sure, less than a year into his presidency, that Trump won’t go on to achieve anything?

Trump has achieved nothing. There’s a big difference between Donald Trump and LBJ. LBJ was a larger-than-life character, he had flaws, a big ego. But he knew deep down in his bones how to get things done. He understood how to make the intersection of politics, policy and government work together in a profound way. Donald Trump has no idea how government works and the worst part is he has no interest in learning. He is so narcissistic that all he cares about is how he can make things better for himself.

What do you think LBJ would have made of Trump?

LBJ would have not understood how Donald Trump could ever rise to becoming President. Some of us are still trying to figure that out! One factor is you have a society where you don’t have to have any ability to become successful. We’ve seen that with the Kardashians and the reality shows. Basically you don’t have any talent or do anything. You can make a lot of money just by being famous. That’s an atmosphere that Johnson wouldn’t have understood. He understood the Kennedys had charisma and were attractive, charming and sexy. But the Kennedys also had government experience. LBJ wouldn’t have understood the Kardashian-iastion of America. Here’s a famous guy who promoted himself and his name, that’s all he did. Now he’s the president — without any abilities or any understanding of how government works. It’s pretty scary.

Continuing the hypothetical theme, what do you reckon LBJ would have made of the resistance to Trump?

Like I say, he would have been appalled that we are in the position that we’re in now. But what he could do that Trump isn’t able to do is to broker deals between both sides. If you look at what he did with the Civil Rights Act, it was rejected by all the Southern Democrats. He even said when it was passed, we’re going to lose the south for a generation. It was more than a generation. He knew that in order to make something work and get done, he had to reach across the aisle and get votes from the other side. Trump doesn’t even know the beginning of how to do it.

When you directed Aaron Sorkin’s ‘The American President’ in 1995, it wasn’t all that controversial. But now we’re living in such polarized times, do you think there will be moviegoers on the political right who will think ‘Rob Reiner directed this so I won’t see it?’

There’s no question about it. People know my politics. I’m sure there are people who will say,’I won’t go see it because Rob Reiner did it.’ But if you look at the picture, it’s a very honest look at who LBJ was and I’m not trying to turn my back on this. I’m trying to find out who he was as a person and people can go see an incredible performance by Woody Harrelson who gives humanity to the character...and there are some laughs in it. But it’s unfortunate we’re living in such a partisan, polarized world right now that you could just say, ‘I don’t like his politics so therefore I’m not going to see the movie.’

What hit of yours has made you personally the most money?

I started the company Castle Rock. With all the pictures I made while Castle Rock was funding its own pictures I didn’t take any profit participation. Anything I would have got as a director, I would have put that back into the company. “A Few Good Men” would probably have been the most successful film of mine but I guess I made more money from [the 2007 Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman comedy] “The Bucket List.” It did $200 million world-wide and I had an ownership position in that.

You had this huge run of smash hits between the mid 1980s and 1990s. Commercially it’s been harder for you since then. Why is that?

I had a lot of hits. It’s because I used to have funding for my films and now I have to, like everybody else, go looking for independent financing. The kinds of pictures I like to make, the studios don’t make. If you think about the films that I made, you may think they are mainstream because they did business but there’s not one movie that I’ve ever made that would ever get considered at a studio. If you look at “Stand By Me,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “A Few Good Men,” they don’t make those kinds of movies at studios. So all the big successes I’ve had, they don’t make them now at movie studios.

James Woods, with whom you made “Ghosts of Mississippi,” is a high-profile personality not afraid to be right-wing on social media. Do you still see him?

I haven’t seen him for a long time and I never realized he was such a right-wing Republican.

He’s not acting much these days and some think his politics has made him unpopular in Hollywood.

I don’t think that’s the case. If people wanted him for a part, they wouldn’t think, “I don’t like his politics.”

Do you regret not going into politics yourself?

No, I don’t because I’ve got a lot of things done outside of office.

Are the Democrats providing an effective opposition to Trump?

No. I don’t they’ve ever seen anything like this and I don’t think they know what to do. But I think ultimately Trump is going to implode and be brought down by his own devices. I don’t think the Democrats are going to have anything to do with it.

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